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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Day Twenty-Three.

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The night passed silently. Perhaps setting up the perimeter of torches around my camp actually worked. Again my mining proved entirely fruitless. While I waited for the sun to rise, I packed away my workbench. I made sure I removed my coal from the furnace before I packed it up also, this time. But then I remembered I was yet to smelt the four iron cubes I had found during the day yesterday so I put the coal back in to smelt them... and then I packed up the furnace without removing the coal. Again. Whoops. Another thirty coal wasted.

Time to get going.

Although I had not heard a sound all night bar the mooing of cows and the clucking of birds (perhaps they were attracted by the light?), I was still wary. I broke the glass, dashed out, and spun around. A lone skeleton was burning on a distant mountain.

Skeleton burning, top left.

An early start.

You know you have been traveling for a while when you have to use two lines of the sign.

Climbing onto the grass, I noticed several creepers were lurking among the animals. Two left me alone, but one decided to block my path.

Creepers back towards camp.

Creeper in my path, pretending to be a tree.

The ocean followed me east. After a few hills, the land dipped down into several sandy ditches before the ocean finally caught up to me.

Hills!

Mushrooms!

Sand!

Ocean!

I seemed to be standing on the edge of a bay. The land stretched around to the north, and I could just see more hazy land on the horizon on the far side. I decided I would walk around instead of crafting a boat.

Looking north east.

At the northern tip of the bay, the water was doing something strange.

.

.

I imagine there was a cave under the sand that all the water was flowing into. It was bizarre, as though the ocean had ceased to exist one cube too early. Moving on, the land was flat for a time, although the coast was never too far off.

Looking south-east, beyond the bay.

Large inland lake to the south. Perhaps an old volcano?

Continuing east.

I guess I'm not out of the woods yet, ho ho ho!

...I guess I am now.

This tree on the coast was rather crazy, by the way.

It was time to finally hit the water.

Land off to the south.

Absolutely nothing to the north.

Sandbanks to the east.

I maneuvered through the sandbanks and continued on until the southern land wrapped around east in front of me. I came ashore right before an interesting cave.

This was even eerier as earlier today I first heard of Herobrine.

Inside the cave. Time to replenish my coal. Again.

A nearby deep cavern.

And on we go!

This island seemed no less forested than the last. Occasionally, though, random slabs of stone and gravel popped up among the trees.

Pig'n'bird meeting.

Random stone slab.

And another one, a bit further on.

More forest.

Atop the next hill, I looked down into a cave network of various entrances.

Looking south...

...and east from the same vantage.

And back south, also.

Pyramid hill.

Beyond the pyramid, the land was relatively treeless.Several bodies of water were scattered across an otherwise flat plain.

.

.

.

Sun getting low.

As the sky began to darken, I climbed over a small hill. I decided I would try the perimeter of torches again as it worked so well the last night.

Perhaps got a little carried away.

Moonrise.

And that was day twenty-three. I had covered quite a lot of ground yet again, but had failed to see anything to exciting. But I doubt that will last for long. It never does. Who knows? The next lavafall may be just over the next hill...

Just an FYI, although you may have figured it out by now, you can right click on your furnace interface with the coal in your hand and it will put 1 coal in the furnace. 1 coal typically is good for 6 iron blocks. That way you don't have to risk losing your coal.

Hello! Welcome to Towards Dawn, a Minecraft tale not about mining, but about walking. Check out the About page for a more detailed description, or start reading from the very beginning.This is a side project of mine. I also write about games at Critical Damage.Mega thanks to Emma Arnold for crafting me up a little banner to brighten the place up. She has a blog and I owe her a plug, so you should go check it out!

About Me

Is a Media and Communications PhD student at RMIT University. Holds a BA in Writing and Japanese with Honors in Communication and Cultural Studies. Is a freelance videogame critic and journalist for the likes of Edge, Polygon, Hyper, Unwinnable, Gamasutra, Pixel Hunt, Ars Technica, and PC Powerplay.
Can be contacted at brendankeogh86 at gmail dot com or on Twitter at BRKeogh.

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Hopefully you enjoy reading my adventure as much as I am enjoying having it and writing about it. If you so wish, please feel free to express this enjoyment in some kind of fiscal way below. But also feel free not to! The wishes of good luck and shouts of motivation in the comments of each post are more than rewarding enough :).